CSIRO Publishing Case Study
August, 2009
CSIRO Publishing is an autonomous science and technology publishing unit within Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). They have a global reputation for quality products and services covering a wide range of scientific disciplines. Products include books, CDs, DVDs, Journals and other multimedia (printed and online).
Business Situation
CSIRO Publishing needed an IT solution that could support:
• Offsite Inventory Management
• Journal Subscription and Renewals
• Book Publishing and Distribution
• eCommerce transactions
• Link to SAP R3
Business Issues
As traditional methods of publishing were changing with new technologies, CSIRO Publishing wanted to ensure they embraced the changing environment so they didn’t risk becoming irrelevant in the marketplace. The need to transact and interact with their customers online was becoming ever more important.
CSIRO Publishing’s software/computer systems were initially installed to handle older, more traditional business processes which couldn’t cope with the evolution of technology. The net result being, disparate, non-integrated information was stored in multi systems, providing no overall view of the business or the data required to run it efficiently. As a result much time was spent collecting and duplicating data from various sources.
Hands-on System Solution
In March 2008, CSIRO Publishing chose Microsoft Dynamics as the solution to solve their business issues.
The Dynamics software incorporated a 3rd Party publishing industry specific add-on, called Subscriptions. Paul Reekie, General Manager, explained that “the integration with the Subscriptions add on was essential to our decision to purchase Dynamics. We also considered other well-known industry related software including Bookmaster and Klopotek. We selected the Dynamics solution because of the functionality/cost ratio plus the important comfort factor for us of a Microsoft backed solution. Dynamics added considerable value to the Microsoft environment we already ran including MS Office, MS Exchange, MS Server and MS SQL.”
Benefits of Dynamics Solution
After 9 months of using Microsoft Dynamics, CSIRO Publishing reported the following benefits:
• Overall integration with other systems - By integrating 2 previously separate systems (Financial and Subscriptions) we have better quality data - no more duplicate data entry
• Better visibility of inventory – Greater control of inventory levels due to insight over what is available and what has been sold. Inventory is now visible by location and type,
• The new system provided the ability to generate a first round of renewals 3 months ahead of previous scheduling. The implication for positive cash flow improvement has been significant.
• Improved reporting - Overall reporting and quality of data is much better, providing one accurate version of truth
• Simple month end and associated report generation means that monthly figures can be submitted to CSIRO Canberra (Head Office) well before their cut-off date.
• Huge time savings gained around monthly system rollover, the old system required everyone to stop what they were doing whilst the process was running.
• Improved access to accurate customer information - leveraging further sales penetration of the customer base by utilisation of the CRM functionality and integrated data.
• Streamlining of warehousing processes for receipt and dispatch of inventory by having barcoding based capabilities already in Dynamics.
Paul Reekie said “the implementation was a success and well worth the effort delivering major, tangible financial benefits in the form of better cash flows, better offsite inventory management and increased sales. We intend to build on this success as we roll out further projects based on our NAV system.”
For more information
For more information about Microsoft Dynamics email us at sales@handson.com.au or call us on 1300 197 960.
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